this book has been written well but it just isn't my style and really struggled with the book as couldn't relate to the characters. this is subjective review but its just how I feel.

I struggled with this. I read it all the way through but I found it quite hard going. It is quite slow moving, and takes a while to really get the story going. By the end I was quite into the narrative but it definitely took me a while to get there.

Sorry but I just could not get into Inland by Tea Obreht. I did not finish the book and only got about a quarter of the way through. The subject matter did not interest me.

If you’re interested in US history, then this is the book for you. For the full review go to https://joebloggshere.tumblr.com/post/187495739141/inland-by-tea-obreht-an-interesting-original

Inland by Tea Obreht is a historical novel set in the American West with two narratives that collide.

I tried on a number of occasions to 'get into' Inland but clearly it's not one for me. I can see the writing is literary and lyrical but I was un able to connect with the characters and was still left wanting even after reading a good percentage. Beautifully written, but characterisation and time not for me.

I found this book confusing and struggled to get into it. The writing style was difficult to enjoy and the characters did not appeal. Not my cup of tea but I can see that other readers would enjoy the novel.

I found this one slow going in places but it's beautifully written - wonderful, evocative descriptions of landscape, and a harsh account of the brutality of the era.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Inland is a sprawling novel dealing with American history in both broad strokes and on a personal level. Lurie Mattie is an outlaw who falls in with a caravan of cameleers tasked with crossing the American West; Nora Lark is a homesteader on the verge of ruin with a tragic backstory and an uncertain future. It is fascinating to see both stories unfold and the Eureka moment when they intersect feels thoroughly deserved.

The prose is sparing but beautiful - Obreht's descriptions of life in the American West feel very true. Both Nora and Lurie are great characters. I would happily read more set in this world. The story of the cameleers is fascinating and definitely deserves to be more widely known.

This was a well conceived book that, for me, suffered in its execution. While the historical context and the location were evocative and effective in portraying a sense of time and place, I found the story hard to get into, and hard to follow. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

While this book was a great insight into the American history and the writing was great especially in describing the beautiful landscape, the characters felt a bit strange for me with no connection at all. It was hard for a mother to keep her family unite and safe, but the ghosts talk and everything else wasn't for me, unfortunately.
I will still recommend this book for the writing and the original plot and story.

I thought a lot about how to review this novel in a way that would urge readers to try it but came up short, I'm afraid. It is inexplicable to me - I was just floored by its brilliance and profoundly moved by the story of Burke and his mercurial cameleer. Please read it! The historical background is fascinating; the brutality and hardships faced by the characters is harrowing, but most of all, the writing is truly, truly gorgeous. Anyone who loves words won't be able to resist Obreht's style. It just shot to first place on my year's best reads (of 97 books) and is a close second to my all time favourite (The Goldfinch).

Mystical and an epic saga this was a breathtaking work of art. Poetic, and unlike anything I've read before. Inland tells the story of Lurie Mattie, a wanderer filled with want. Circumstances lead him to join a train of camellers where he begins a journey with his camel Burke across miles of harsh terrain. The story interlaces with that of the Lark family, in particular Nora Lark, a formidable woman trying to hold her family together in the midst of a drought and a changing political climate. The nuance in the novel was sublime and as Lurie and the Larks are ultimately drawn together in the closing chapters it was beautifully concluded. An amazing work of literary fiction, it will transport you as all good books should.

My thanks to the Orion Publishing Group/Weidenfeld & Nicolson for an eARC via NetGalley of Téa Obreht’s ‘Inland’ in exchange for an honest review.

I adored her 2011 debut novel, ‘The Tiger’s Wife’ and was ecstatic to learn that her second novel was being published and very pleased to have the opportunity to read and review. As I started reading ‘Inland’ on its day of publication I was able to buy its audiobook edition. This dual read/listen worked especially well for ‘Inland’ as it is a novel that due to its complexity requires close reading.

While ‘Inland’ is technically a work of historical fiction, as it is set in the American West during the mid-to-late 19th Century, it is also literary fiction at its finest. Exquisite prose, an immaculately rendered sense of time and place and packed with fascinating characters. While serious literature it also has moments of humour and craftily subverts certain stereotypes of the Western genre.

There are two narrative streams in alternating chapters. The first follows Lurie, an orphaned immigrant who falls in with a dangerous group of outlaws becoming a thief, a grave robber and later a murderer. He and other members of the Mattie gang are doggedly pursued by a marshal across the Wild West. He later becomes a member of the US Camel Corps and forms a deep bond with a camel with the unlikely name of Burke. I could imagine a ballad in honour of them.

The other stream centres on Nora Lark, a frontierswoman living on a farm in drought-ridden 1890s Arizona. Her husband, Emmett, has gone missing while on a mission to locate water. A local cattle baron is pressing her to abandon their farm and the local newspaper the family runs. In addition, she is dealing with various crises involving her children. Her youngest son is reporting seeing a beast and Nora is seeking to reassure him that he is imagining it.

How these narrative streams finally intersect proved very unusual and satisfying. Also, while Lurie’s chapters range across the United States and Mexico over many years, Nora’s chapters are focused on a single, intense day in her life.

Obreht incorporates elements of magical realism into her story. I was very pleased by this though it may not appeal to all readers, who might have expected a more conventional narrative than one populated by spirits.

Both Lurie and Nora commune with the dead. While Nora’s connection is restricted to conversations with her dead daughter, Lurie sees and interacts with many as unquiet spirits are drawn to him.

In addition, Josie, Emmett’s cousin who is living with the Larks, is drawn to the occult and holds seances for local people. She regularly speaks to the dead referring to them as ‘the other living’.

I found this a beautifully written, powerful novel. It is certainly a book that I will reread in order to more fully appreciate its symbolism, language and multiple layers.

I plan to recommend it for inclusion in our County Library Reading Group Collection as it offers a great deal of opportunity for discussion as well as being accessible, well crafted, and evoking a powerful sense of its period and place.

I am a bit surprised that it wasn’t included on the Booker Prize longlist though I am certain that it will be quickly recognised for the masterpiece that it is.

Highly recommended.

I struggled with this book. I was picking it up, reading a little, putting it down while I read another book and coming back to it. In the end I gave a day to it so I could plough my way through it.

Parts of this book did pull me in and I enjoyed those parts. There were parts that I didn’t enjoy. And overall I was completely confused about what I was reading.

Others might really enjoy this book but it wasn’t for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

DNF. Unfortunately I just couldn't get in to this book. I did not connect with any of the characters, and I didn't enjoy the writing style

Inland by Tea Obreht
This is a very well researched historical novel set in a period I have never read about before – Arizona in the mid to late 19th Century. The story concerns two seemingly unconnected stories that of Lurie who is a Turkish immigrant who has turned to robbery to survive and Nora; a mother struggling to raise her family during a drought. Her husband has been away for days searching for water. Her young son is convinced that a beast is waiting to devour them. She is a very strong frontierswoman but she also holds conversations with the dead.
The landscape is wonderfully described by Obreht and the writing is dense and absorbing. There were times when I needed to re-read in order to fully understand the depth of the prose. A fascinating book and one which I would recommend. Many thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

This is an unusual take on the wild west of the latter half of the 19th century and a little bit of history new to me - that of the use of camels as transport in the desert regions. We follow the fortunes over a couple of decades of a young man, known by various names as he becomes a fugitive and spends his life evading the law, most interestingly as part of a group of cameleers. His story intertwines, towards the end of the book, with that of Nora, a pioneer wife and mother eking out a tough existence in a parched Arizona. Nora’s narrative takes place over one day as she considers how and why she has got to where she is now. It took quite some pages for me to engage with either character, but the quality of the writing reeled me in. The atmosphere of lawlessness and menace that the author creates is superbly well done and sustained right up to a surprising conclusion, by which time I was hoping for the best for both Lurie and Nora, and the rest of her family (and the camels, of course). Not that there is a happy-ever-after for everyone, but the action wraps up nicely and we have a glimpse of what the future might hold.

A couple of examples from Nora’s musings about her life struck me.

‘Every part of her felt staved-in. Of course, Emmett hadn’t just meant one wants better for one’s children. What he had meant was: one wants better for ladies - and one wants ladies, not hard women, for one’s sons. Hadn’t he considered her a lady, once?’

‘Not only did he not see her as a lady - he did not bother with the comparison. She was a tough, opinionated, rangy, sweating mule of a thing, and the sum total of her life’s work was her husband of twenty years enumerating what he desired for his sons - which did not include a companion with her qualities, but did include moving to a more favourable clime to secure the affections of a person with not one half of Nora’s merits. Of course it did.’

Highly recommended.

Inland, away from any easy to find water supply, desperate, thirsty, hungry and suffering.
Nora is a lovely character, full of perseverance, love for her children, support for her dreamer of a husband and dumped in the middle of nowhere with no fresh water supply, little community support and even littler hope of fulfilling their dreams. The loss of her daughter hits Nora hard and she carries Eleanor with her almost in ghost form and talks to her about every decision and concern.
Running parallel is the tale of Lurie, outlaw on the run, almost more from circumstance than design and desperate to fall in with the right gang of wrong 'uns to keep him going.

||the tow stories are disparate at the beginning, with Luries' adventures whilst running from the sheriff taking him all over the land, avoiding the law and eventually meeting up with some miraculous beasts and their owners.

The descriptions of the landscape and the circumstances surrounding the characters lives were extremely well written- leaving you praying for water at every page turn.
The parallel story lines worked well but at times I wanted them to draw together sooner than they actually did as the stories were beginning to get a little thin in places.
Overall a challenging read but well worth the perseverance in getting to grips with the various characters.

I have tried a number of times to read this book, but even with perseverance I cannot get into it. Therefore, I have only managed to read about 20%. I feel like it is a very slow start and doesn't grasp me as much as I would like it to.